in the synthesizers and choir, which imitate sobbing and weeping. Act 2: Evas Zweitgeburt Eve's Second Parturition consists of three scenes. Scene 1: Mädchenprozession In the Girls' Procession, a choir of young girls, wearing dresses shaped like lilies, ceremonially enters bearing candles. The sea is now frozen, and women are hacking blocks of ice with axes, and melting the ice in cauldrons. The idea came from a ritual Stockhausen witnessed in Japan, in a valley near Kyoto, in which girls were carrying small lamps in a procession to a temple. This type of ceremony, with processions of torches, candles, or other forms of fire, is found as a fertility rite in many world traditions, such as the Egyptian Feast of Lamps for Osiris, the Greek and Roman rites of Hecate and Diana, respectively, and later in the Christian festival of torches on 15 August in honor of the Virgin Mary. Scene 2: Befruchtung mit Klavierstück—Wiedergeburt Conception with Piano Piece. The women and girls call for a grand piano played by a budgerigar to inseminate the Eve statue for a second birth. The budgerigar plays Klavierstück XIV. Rebirth. To the singing of American Indian children, the piano is quickly pulled away and the statue's womb begins to glow, green and red, like a nativity scene. The sunlight returns, and seven boys are born, one for each weekday. Scene 3: Evas Lied Eve's Song is essentially a concerto for basset horn and synthesizers, against a background of the continuing boys' and girls' choirs from the preceding scenes, and trombones. It consists of a succession of four situations: Cœur de Basset emerges from the breast of the statue, playing a basset horn. The women melt large chunks of ice in steaming vats. With glass laboratory equipment, they condense the steam into water. In Wochenkreis (Cycle of the Week), Cœur de Basset teaches each of the boys the song of his weekday. Basset-Teases: the women put the water they have collected into watering cans and sprinkle the earth with it. Cœur de Basset divides into multiple basset-horn players, Busi, Busa, and Muschi. A transparent Eve figure emerges from the statue and floats toward the boys. Initiation. Cœur, Busi, Busa, and Muschi begin a dance, confusing and infatuating the boys. A distant thunderstorm is heard, and a boy calls, "Turn off the lights!" The lights go out. Act 3: Evas Zauber Eve's Magic is also